Municipal Government 101: Freedom of Information (MFIPPA) Requests (as described by someone with 11 years’ experience processing MFIPPA requests for the Region of Durham and Town of Whitby)

I had another post planned for today, but I’ve seen a few posts come across my newsfeed today regarding the Port Perry Agricultural Society’s request for information from the Township of Scugog.  $14,000 seems like a shocking amount of money, so let’s break down the process.

The Township of Scugog is required to provide access to records and release public information is accordance with the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA). The Act ensures that information is publicly available while also protecting personal information that is in their custody.

When a person wants access to information held by the Township, they first file an application and pay the prescribed $5.00 application fee.  The requests are received by the Clerks Department, and an email goes out to all the respective departments that may hold pieces of the information requested.  For example, if you requested information about the maintenance of a road, an email may go to Public Works.  If the request is broad enough, it may touch every department in the organization.

Staff are then required to search their files for documents that may be relevant to the request.  This sometimes requires searching indices of boxes sent to an off-site file storage facility, as most municipalities don’t have the capacity to store seven years of documents onsite.  Staff are usually given a timeline to report back with a listing of the number of documents they have in their custody, along with the number of pages associated with those documents, the amount of time spent on the search, and the estimated amount of time they expect to spend on the actual retrieval and review of the documents.  This information is then compiled and reviewed by the Clerks Department to prepare the estimated cost of producing the documents pursuant to the MFIPPA request. The requester may elect to narrow the scope of their request at this point to reduce the staff time and disbursements associated with their request.

If the requester decides to proceed with the application, and agrees to pay the fees, the Clerks Department will then advise staff to pull the documentation, and keep a log of the time they work on the file.  Once they have all the documentation together, they will prepare an index listing the date, to/from (if correspondence), description, and the number of pages of each document.  This is to keep a record of exactly what is produced.  With respect to my experience working in the legal department, we would also have to provide an explanation if a document is not produced but in our possession.  This can happen if a document contains solicitor-client privileged information (as it most often was in my department), third party information, economic interest information, etc. (as set out in Sections 6-16 of the Act).  Staff will also review the documents for the purpose of redacting certain information before providing it under the application. Information that might be redacted could include personal contact information of a third party corresponding with the Township.

As you can see, there is significant staff time that goes into responding to an MFIPPA request, as well as expenses such as recall fees from file storage, and photocopies.  It’s under Section 45(1) of the Act where we learn about the fees:

45(1) A head shall require the person who makes a request for access to a record to pay fees in the amounts prescribed by the regulations for,

(a) the costs of every hour of manual search required to locate a record;

(b) the costs of preparing the record for disclosure;

(c) computer and other costs incurred in locating, retrieving, processing and copying a record;

(d) shipping costs; and

(e) any other costs incurred in responding to a request for access to a record.  

Fees are set by the Provincial Government under Regulation R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 823: GENERAL and are based on search time and the volume of documents requested. Section 5.2 sets application fees at $5.00, while Search Time is billed at $7.50 per 15 minutes and photocopying at $0.20 per page as per Section 6.

In this instance, the Port Perry Agricultural Society (in my opinion, based on my own first-hand experience), must have provided a request for a very broad scope of records to result in such a high number of documents being found (4,000). If we do a basic calculation for 4,000 documents, and say they average 5 pages each, the production of the physical documents would result in $4,000 in photocopying alone.   That leaves $10,000 in search fees which equals 333 hours ($10,000/$7.50 per 15 minutes = 333 hours) of staff time, or 5 minutes per document.

As you can see, when you consider the volume of documents that are associated with the request made by the Port Perry Agricultural Society, and then consider the amount of work that staff are required to do in order to fulfill that request (allowing for only five minutes per document based on my calculation) and the prescribed fees from the Provincial Government, the overall cost becomes more clear.

Is it a shocking amount of money?  Absolutely.  But hopefully this post will at least help you understand where the amount comes from. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, there is provision under the Act (Section 45(4) and (5)) where the Port Perry Agricultural Society could request a waiver of the fees, and it could be reviewed and approved by the Township.

(PLEASE NOTE: This process is based on my experience processing MFIPPA requests for the Region of Durham and Town of Whitby – the Township’s exact internal process may differ slightly.)